You will probably already know that LED lighting can save you money.
LED lighting is far more efficient than traditional fluorescent lighting. However, the many advantages of LED lighting go beyond simply lowering your electricity bill.
Let’s look at the advantages and benefits one by one.
This is obviously a very important advantage over fluorescent or metal halide lighting. Most people upgrade to LED lighting because they want to pay a lot less in electricity costs.
But how are the savings calculated? Let’s look at an example:
A typical 72W fluorescent ceiling panel light in an office would be replaced by a 26W LED panel.
If you have 100 of these fluorescent panels and they are on for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, and 50 weeks a year – and assuming you pay 12p per kWh for your electricity – your annual electricity bill for these lights will be £1,728.
Here is the maths for fluorescent lighting:
100 panels x 72W = 7,200 watts = 7.2 kilo-watts (kW)
8 hours x 5 days x 50 weeks = 2,000 hours
7.2 kW x 2,000 hours = 14,400 kilo-watt hours (kWh)
14,000 kWh x 12p = £1,728
Switching to LED panels will reduce the annual bill to just £624. That represents an annual saving of £1,104 – a reduction of 63.9%. That’s a major advantage.
Here is the maths for LED lighting:
100 panels x 26W = 2,600 watts = 2.6 kilo-watts (kW)
8 hours x 5 days x 50 weeks = 2,000 hours
2.6 kW x 2,000 hours = 5,200 kilo-watt hours (kWh)
5,200 kWh x 12p = £624
Another great advantage of LED lighting is a complete elimination of lighting maintenance costs.
Imagine you have a large assembly area with 100 metal halide ‘high bay’ lights. The lights are suspended from the ceiling at a height of 8m.
What do you do if one of the bulbs blows? You have to hire a scissor lift (or equivalent) to gain safe access to the light fitting. You then have to remove the cover of the fitting, take out the old bulb, insert the new one, replace the cover, send the lift back to the hire company, etc.
That process is expensive and time-consuming. With 100 bulbs, you will be repeating this process on a regular basis.
With LED lighting, a significant benefit is that there is no bulb to replace. Rather than being a fitting with a bulb in it, an LED light is simply a device that produces light. There is no bulb that can fail. LED luminaires are also very robust.
This advantage of LED lighting is much appreciated by all the facilities managers around the UK. No more lighting maintenance.
LED lighting is often installed just to save money. However, another key advantage to staff working under LED lights is an improvement in the quality and distribution of the light.
Consider a warehouse with racking and 10 aisles. It’s quite common to find aisles which are very poorly illuminated. The fork-lift driver has to move goods around the warehouse, unable to see properly.
With properly specified LED lighting in aisles between racking, you create a much brighter environment from the floor level right up to the top of the racking.
With good design, you can also eliminate ‘hot spots’, where some areas are very bright, but others a bit dark. LED lighting allows for excellent light distribution over the work plane.
Another benefit of LED lighting is being able to control colour temperature. This can have a big impact on how staff feel while they are working. Please read our separate guide that explains colour temperature in detail.
Of all the advantages of LED lighting, this is the one that gives you a warm feeling inside.
Companies are increasingly trying to lessen their impact on the environment. Board directors are steering their organisations towards green initiatives.
LED lighting is a quick, easy step towards a sustainable, energy efficient future.
For example, LED lighting will reduce your carbon footprint instantly. A company that has a range of say 400 traditional light fittings, and replaces them with LED, will typically take about 35 tons of CO2 out of the atmosphere each year.
LED lights have another environmental advantage too: they don’t contain mercury. This was a problem that plagued compact fluorescent lights.
Not only does an LED lighting upgrade reduce your electricity bills significantly each month, it also pays for itself very quickly.
Even without a capital grant, LED lighting projects generally have a payback period of 1-3 years. If some of your lighting is on 24 hours a day, the payback may well be 1 year. If your lighting is on during normal office hours, the payback period will probably be 2-3 years.
However, there are a number of advantageous grant schemes currently available to UK organisations.
For example, the Low Carbon Workspaces initiative offers up to £5,000 off in various counties around the country.
With a capital grant, your payback is even better.
Here is a summary of the key benefits and advantages of LED lighting:
